ntw3001 wrote:Jeeesus i spent last night with a couple of particular folks and boy howdy don't they know how to make a dude feel like poopcakes. I think I shall have to avoid their company in future, which is a shame because I was pretty tight with them in Canada. But I spent the evening trying to convince a town planner and a receptionist that I'm worth knowing and that ain't worth the angst.

Those types of people are everywhere, in varying degrees of severity. I thought for the longest time nobody could be happy working retail, and the only people working at stores were those on their way to something better if younger, or who didn't have a chance or a choice if older. My wife taught me that wasn't true. Even if she doesn't like her job most days, she does it because she likes working with people, and doing something she can leave behind when she goes home. These folk sound more like they're genuinely elitist.

BRITISHERS: What is generally thought of Dorset? Thomas Hardy came from there, and his novels tend to be set in provincial English towns where people farm and talk in folksy dialect. But while reading "Drummer Hodge" I couldn't help noticing this line: "homely Northern breast and brain." So I'm either wrong about Dorset, or I need to reevaluate my assumption that people from Southern rural communities don't participate in the sort of "South smart/North dumb" thinking that I associate with more wealthy and metropolitan areas of Southern England. By the way, I recognize that's I'm simplifying things and that this sort of prejudice was more common in the past than it is today.

I'd probably be inclined to read more into Hardy's own opinions than the general mood of the age (after all, he's a writer, not a reporter). He's known for having a thing about classism, so I'd expect those attitudes to come through in his writing. As far as that divide goes, to an actual Dorset farmer I imagine Northerners wouldn't have any particular expectations placed upon them than any other 'outsider'. Not many characters in Hardy's books would ever have left their small corner of Wessex, so I doubt there would have been enough of a relationship with 'The North' to form a stereotype.

But that's assuming the character referred to is actually from the North, rather than North Wessex (in which case it would be a sign of the kind of parochial frame of mind common pretty much anywhere, but on a localised scale compared to the regional and national stereotypes that exist in modern countries). So: I think it may reveal something about Hardy's own attitudes, but I don't think I'd read it as revealing any grand social truth.

That may be Thomas Hardy's opinion, but I personally wouldn't en-Dorset.

I'm sorry. I promise that if you read on, I won't do anything like that again.

I actually visit Dorset on a surprisingly semi-frequent basis. It seems that every other year I end up spending a bit of time in Bournemouth. It's a really nice town when the weather is pleasant. My opinion of the entire region is derived entirely from there, which I suppose isn't particularly helpful as Bournemouth was actually a part of Hampshire until 197somethingorother.

I made an internal promise to myself to try and not compalin about the heat or cold here anymore, unless it is truely extreme. However, I can still Blurt about all the heat that is needed in the winter drying me out so that I woke up this morning, stretched and promptly my nose started to bleed, right?

"I want potential romantic and/or sexual prospects to be vaguely reminded of John Wayne Gacy when they see me."

I gave it a quick test last night, just to check it works. I got it with a SD cCard with the optimised Linux build on it (which is a free download, but it wasn't too much for a 4gb card preloaded) and a case. Plugged it in (a USB charging cable which i have tons laying around), plugged in my Macs keyboard and mouse and connected it to my TV... and it just worked So now im thinking what to use it for, hmmm...

it's used quite frequently by people who like to write device drivers for their toaster or install linux to their car radio, but there are limited uses for it if you aren't quite that committed to coding, imho.

ntw3001 wrote:Sass has to come from the heart, not from the shirt.

traubster wrote:I find it irritating whenever I walk through a cemetery and there's not one gravestone that reads something like, "We're all grateful that he's dead. Sorry if he owed you money."

My sister's fiancee is planning to use one as some kind of home entertainment hub. I believe its job will be to direct communications between multiple devices, so he can drag stuff from the computer in the study onto the TV (or whatever). Nothing that can't already be done with other devices, but he wants to make a project of it and learn a bit about programming and such.

I went to a semi-traditional Burns Night yesterday! This gathering was attended solely by English grad students--by that I mean American grad students majoring in English. No one wanted haggis, so someone made meat pies (which I didn't eat since I'm vegetarian). There was Scotch, too. We read some of his poetry out loud and our most musically-talented friend played Scottish folk songs on his mandolin and some sort of flute thing. We went around the room and toasted Robert Burns, then the men gave a toast to the women and the women a toast to the men. Things got a bit confusing culturally because my friend got his mandolin from his Italian grandmother, and as he played it my other friend tried teaching us a Greek folk dance. But overall the evening was a success.

BBC News said that real haggis is illegal in the US anyway, due to sheep lung not being considered a food. No complaints from me; I'd try haggis if it were presented to me, but I'm not inclined to seek it out.

ntw3001 wrote:BBC News said that real haggis is illegal in the US anyway, due to sheep lung not being considered a food. No complaints from me; I'd try haggis if it were presented to me, but I'm not inclined to seek it out.

They talked about that on QI. They said that people used to smuggle it in illegally from Canada.

I am forced to overhear a lot of conversations in my communal office. My least/most favorite are those that take place between two older women who are returning to school now that their kids are grown. The other day these two women were talking about the things you're "not allowed to say" in the liberal college world. Their first, their very first example was how you can't "say anything remotely positive about colonialism." Apparently it "did good things too."